


Be With Me

by AuroraNoirInStardust



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Ben is still with her, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, But with agency!, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Conception, Force Dyad (Star Wars), I’m sorry, Kleenex Warning, Lover of the nighttime shadows, Non-fix-it Fix-it Fic, Pregnancy, Rey gets to mourn, Soulmates, This hurts, Trying to make the TROS ending suck less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraNoirInStardust/pseuds/AuroraNoirInStardust
Summary: His word to me still stands. He is still with me. I feel him in my bones, in my soul, in the strange looping bond that still pulses within me. And I have him in my dreams; my lover of the nighttime shadows. I swear I can feel his arms about me as I sleep.But this dream life was not the end of the life we share. The life that would have been, had he not been ripped from us by fate.I became aware of it not long after losing him. That hum, ever present since he brought me back, blended into our bond, lying in wait until the moment it could delay no longer. A child waiting to bloom. Our child.***A TROS Fix-It Fic that doesn’t actually fix it. Hopefully it’s just actually bittersweet instead of bitter.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 32
Kudos: 75





	Be With Me

**Author's Note:**

> TROS SPOILERS ABOUND!!!!!!!
> 
> I started writing this literally the night of the premiere, when I got spoiled as to the ending of TROS and have been working on it ever since I finally saw the movie. Par for the course for me, a one-shot that takes 3 months to write. 
> 
> I will warn you: this doesn’t fix the ending. Ben still dies. Rey still takes up the Skywalker name. Blah. Blah. But I hope I added just enough to add a tiny bit of hope to it and to make the bitter tragedy that was TROS more a bittersweet ending. 
> 
> Trigger Warning: This does deal with Force-conception and pregnancy. But I agree that I hate the idea of that robbing agency from our couple, who should have had the chance to make that choice together about starting a family. So I hope that I’ve given some power back to them for that moment, even though the Force has to have a hand in it. It’s a tricky thing. 
> 
> Lots of love to[MyJediLife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyJediLife/pseuds/MyJediLife) for getting a quick beta done on this.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/145808226@N04/49670438111/in/dateposted-public/)

It has been five years. Time has crawled by at a snail's pace, and still flown by in the blink of an eye. It’s so true what they say: “The days are long, but the years are short.” And yet, every moment is etched into my memory. 

It has been five whole years since that final battle, where he and I faced the greatest evil, the man who’d twisted and contorted our very existences. The war was won, but at great cost. How I kept my wits about me with the battle raging overhead, feeling my Dyad clawing at life and barely holding on while my own life-force was hanging by a thread, I’m not sure. But the borrowed strength of heroes long gone filled me, renewed me, if only for a moment. And with their power forcing my limbs to move, I took down the evil that was my grandfather once and for all. 

In those last moments, I sent what little energy I had left down the failing, flickering bond to Ben, praying it would be enough to help him rise from the ashes of this war and continue on. The last thing I remember from my life before the world changed was the agonizing snap of our bond severing as the life left me. 

Then all was silent. 

There are nights I relive that moment—feeling my heart stop beating, watching the edges of my vision blur and blacken as darkness began to swallow me. But then there is always that flicker of light, the golden glow that spread from that tiny pinprick in oblivion to a blaze that wrapped around and through my cold, lifeless body, pumping the life-force back into me. The rush of blood as my heart began to beat again, the gasp as my lungs burned with its first new breath of air. The way the tattered edges of the bond stitched the wound in my soul together, and then stretched and spread outward until it found purchase. How I was suddenly filled with his presence once more. 

How I opened my eyes to lock onto his, tears streaking his cheeks, but a smile—a true, bright smile—greeting me as I came back to this world. How for one fleeting moment, I looked at this man, this echo of my soul, my love—my  _ Ben _ at long last—and saw our hope for our future. And pressing his lips to mine, the way he wrapped his arms about me and tangled his fingers in my hair, how we melded to each other, breathed each other in—it felt like our souls clicked into place. And for that one beautiful moment, with his laughter in my ears, we both felt whole. 

But if we’ve learned one thing, it’s that neither of us were meant to hold on to anything so beautiful for long. 

For then it all came crashing down. 

The light in his eyes began to fade and he started to slump. I scrambled up from his embrace to catch him, letting his head rest beneath my hand on the cold earth. His signature—once so bright with renewed purpose—was fading, flickering. I searched for our bond, but found it was turning in on itself. Not severing, as it had before. He was still there, and yet he wasn’t. 

And then, the smallest whisper down our thread. A dying breath that breathed out,  _ I love you, sweetheart. _ I felt a final push, a small rush between my soul and his as his life-force filled me to the brim. And then he was still. His signature was quiet. The bond thrummed in a circle back in on itself. His body faded away with the dust of battle settling around us.

Ben Solo—born of legacy, twisted by darkness, reborn in the light—died doing the one thing his grandfather desperately wanted, but failed to do: He saved the woman he loved from death. 

I remember the shock. The disbelief. The doubt. And then the deluge of tears that overtook me. The gasping sobs that seized my body and choked me. The cruelness was all encompassing, and the sorrow swallowed me whole. I sobbed into his shirt, which I gathered from the ground and held in a desperate attempt to feel his arms around me once more as I waited for the nightmare to pass me by.

I don’t know how long I stayed wrapped in my grief, buried in the smell of him, my lips still holding the taste of his mouth. But I soon began to repeat the mantra I’d used to call the spirits of the Jedi to me before I fell. “Be with me,” I croaked out between sobs. “Be with me.”

_ I am with you. _

I stuttered in place. The voice was inside me, clear and strong. But gentle as the breeze or the kiss of the dawn. And it was a voice I’d know anywhere.

“Ben?” I’d sobbed out, hearing it echo in the cavern of the ruins. 

_ I am with you, Rey. We’re one, as we were always meant to be. I’ll be with you always. _

And if I closed my eyes and listened—truly listened—I could feel his presence. I could feel how my soul was not split in two, but made whole. I could feel  _ him _ . Feel Ben. Within me. And a sense of calm settled over me. It gave me the strength to rise from the floor, to take a small step forward. And then another. For now, I was not going on alone. He was walking with me every step I took. Interwoven with my very being. 

It was not the future we’d seen. It was not the future I’d wished for, dreamed about, prayed for. But it could be enough. He’d given me life. So I would live it for the both of us.

I soon discovered that Ben had given me a gift beyond just my life. When I slept—which did not come easy at first, wrapped in his shirt and smell—dreams that felt like memories filled my head. Dreams that refused to fade with the morning light like most of them do. Dreams of him and me—and the future that was stolen from us. The future that we had seen when we touched. The future that should have been. 

At night, in my head, I lived a lifetime of joy. We courted on a starship exploring the galaxy. We wed in the forest where we first met. We made a home on Naboo, walking the halls where his grandparents had loved in secret. We learned each other's bodies by moonlight, making passionate and sweet love while reaffirming our devotion to one another.

His word to me still stands. He is still with me. I feel him in my bones, in my soul, in the strange looping bond that still pulses within me. And I have him in my dreams; my lover of the nighttime shadows. I swear I can feel his arms about me as I sleep. 

But this dream life was not the end of the life we share. The life that would have been, had he not been ripped from us by fate. 

I became aware of it not long after losing him. That hum, ever present since he brought me back, blended into our bond, lying in wait until the moment it could delay no longer. A child waiting to bloom. Our child. 

I was shocked at the realization at first. And then the Force seemed to speak to me, to give me the choice. I could accept its offering of attempting to right the wrong of our shattered destinies. Or, I could let it go, and it would pass back onto my soul and become a part of me. My choice. 

Well, mine and Ben’s. The fact of the matter was this life was already there, made of the two of us as he sacrificed his very essence for mine, pumping it into my body with his hand on my belly, over my womb. The way that echo of him inside of me seemed to fret when I became aware of this spark, I truly believe Ben never intended for his life force to spill over and mold into something new within me. And because of that, the Force allowed that little life to lie dormant as long as possible. And when it could wait no longer, I felt that presence ask permission to  _ become _ . 

As Ben and I made love in our dreamworld that night, we chose together. I could feel his worry and his guilt, but also his yearning and his silent hope. I assured him that I could do this. That  _ we _ could do this. And in the early morning hours, from the quiet reaches of our nighttime passion, I felt that hum kindle into a spark. A light blooming within me. An echo of Ben’s life-force mingling with mine and taking root inside me, fulfilling the dream we both glanced into since we touched hands over the fire. 

As soon as I felt our baby stirring within me, I knew that I did not want to bring our child into the world surrounded by sand and heat. So I left the desert of Tatooine behind me—not that it ever held any meaning for me, anyway. Just a place to land, with some history for the story of the Jedi before me and my bondmate within me. I wanted to bring our child into a verdant world, someplace full of life, with meaning. 

So I headed to Naboo. After all, Ben’s grandmother was a Nabooian Queen and I… well, my unfortunate parentage at least taught me that we came from the same planet. We shared a culture, as well as a soul. It seemed only fitting I should raise our child there.

I made a little home by the lakes Ben took me to in our dreams. I kept my relation to the Emperor a secret, of course. But I found that letting the father of my child be known—as Ben Solo, son of Leia Organa and grandson of their own Padme Amidala—had the Nabooian people welcome me with open arms. They assumed I was widowed all too soon, and under delicate circumstances, and I did nothing to deter that belief. The Force did marry us, in a way. Over the fire in our hut, by linking our minds and hearts and souls. By having his spirit blend into mine at the end. Though I claim the Skywalker name, in honor of the legacy of Jedi that came before me, I can’t help but feel a rush of sad joy go through me when I’m called Rey Solo. Skywalker in public, Solo in private. Honoring both legacies as best I can. 

And it was in the small home I’d made, with the flowers in full bloom and the sunshine spilling in through the window, that my son was born, with only a midwife to assist me. I felt Ben’s presence with me every step of the way, as if he was holding my hand and kissing my brow and whispering words of encouragement from the first pang of labor to the desperate final push that brought him kicking and screaming into this world. And as I gazed on our son for the first time, his tiny cries ceasing as he nestled to my breast, I could feel that looking out from my eyes was both the gaze of a woman who had longed for family for so long, and a man desperately wishing he could reach beyond the veil to be the father in the family he’d craved all his life. 

My boy. He may not have been conceived in the traditional way, but there is utterly no denying who his father is. Wide, dark eyes. Ebony curls with ears that stick out between his wild locks. But without the burden of a legacy on his shoulders. For though I sensed his life in the Force from the moment he took root in my womb, though he was born literally of the Force between a Dyadic pair, there is no power coursing through his veins. He’ll not struggle with the pull to the light or the dark, as both Ben and I did and still do. He just  _ is _ . 

I thought at first that seeing my Ben reflected in miniature everyday would be painful. And I won’t say that there aren’t days that I look at my boy and feel the pain of loss and the unfairness in this fate. But mostly, it's a blessing. To see this child, the very image of his father, grow up without the shadow of the dark to cloud his joy, without the whispers of an ancient evil in his ear to twist and torment his mind. He is happy and precocious—and stubborn to a fault. And he knows he is loved. I will never give him reason to doubt how loved and wanted he is. 

After all, I did name him Ben. And this Ben Solo will have every chance at love and life and hope.

  
  


Boyish giggles grow louder as I hear small feet pound the floor. I tuck away my notebook, where I tally the days since Ben and I became one. It’s no longer the day scratched on the wall of a lonely AT-AT in the desert. I no longer count the days in waiting. Though it does tell me how long I’ve been living without my soulmate’s physical presence, it’s also a record of the joy I’ve found. The day I first felt my son kick. His birth, first steps. The nights I rendezvous with my lover in our dreamland in-between. Moments I’ll maybe share with my son one day. Others, I’ll always keep in my heart. But for now, he doesn’t need to know I count the days. 

Just then, a mop of dark curly hair comes tearing around the corner, a basket in a grubby hand, a huge smile that is the absolute copy of the beautiful smile I was blessed with from his father only once. 

“Mama, look what we found!” Little Ben holds out a basket with flowers and herbs that no doubt his nanny helped him pick. I look through them, clumsily plucked with a small hand from the earth, most are more green than flower. But still useful. He likes to help. 

“These are perfect, Benny!” I ruffle his hair as he smiles a wide, silly grin. My little helper. “They’ll help Mama in her work.”

“But Mama, you can heal with your hands.” Ben grasps my fingers with his small ones. “Why do you still use these?”

“I  _ do _ heal with my hands, Benny.” I lean forward, taking a rag and wiping the dirt and grim from his little fingers. “In many ways. Sometimes with a gentle touch and medicine to help people grow strong and heal with time. Sometimes with bacta, if they need a little more. And sometimes with the life force that runs through us all.”

“Papa could do that too, right?” He asks with a small cock of his head. 

“Yes,” I tell him again. He knows all about his father. Though my son is small, I’ve never hid anything about Ben from him. The good or the bad. “Papa would have been a wonderful healer. He saved your mama, after all.”

My little one lifts his arms, and I pick him up and place him in my lap. He’s still such a small boy. Perhaps he’ll grow to his father’s stature in time. “Mama, tell me the Papa story,” he says as he snuggled into my arms. 

“I think you know it by heart by now, little one.” I kiss his forehead and brush the curls from his eyes. “You could tell me.”

“No, you tell it.” He looks up at me with those huge, dark eyes. And how can I deny that?

“Your father,” I start, leaning back against the chair and gathering little Ben in my arms to hold him close to my heart, “wouldn’t like hearing me tell you he was a good man. Because he did things that he wasn’t proud of. Bad things. But we all falter. We all make mistakes—“

“—And Papa had a monster inside his head.” My little one interjects.

“Yes, he did.” I nod, chuckling lightly. “A monster that told him that all those bad things would help him. Would make him feel better. Would make him strong. But monsters lie. They tell us the things we want to hear to make us choose the wrong path. And your Papa walked the wrong path for many years—a dark path, because those monsters led him on and made that path seem like it led to something wonderful. And for him, his path of light was full of so many stones that tripped him and hurt him. So it was possible for those monsters to convince him that the dark path was better, that it was his destiny to become a monster like them. But there was a light inside him, a flicker that they could not destroy. So he wore the mask of a monster to hide that spark, and wore it so well that he believed that it had become his true face. He believed it was his true self. So much so that he thought he couldn’t go home to his mama. That he hurt his own papa. Even I believed it for a time.”

“But you saw the light in him, didn’t you?” Little Ben asks, moving the story along. 

“I did. Saw it and felt it. And for a long time, that’s all I wanted him to be. But as much as he needed to embrace his light, I needed to embrace his dark, and the light and dark within me. We all have light and dark within us—and we need both to be who we are truly meant to be.”

“But Papa was good at the end,” my son states with a proud smile. “When he saved you. When he gave me to you.”

“He was.” I bop Ben on his little nose, which he got from me—to his father’s relief. “He wouldn’t say he was good, but I do. He embraced his past and his choices, and then chose to do the right thing. He was reborn in the light, but that doesn’t diminish his darkness. Light isn’t just good. Dark isn’t just bad. Too much light will blind us. Too much dark, and we are swallowed by it. But put them together, and we can see all the paths that lay before us and make our own choice about which one to take. And in the end, Papa slew those monsters, and he came back for your Mama.” I can feel the tears begin to gather in my eyes, remembering the moment I felt Ben in our bond, saw him clearly, all shadow and darkness cast away. “And I met him in the middle. We walked the same path, the path that we were born to walk on together.”

“Because you’re a Dy-ad.” He always fumbles with that word, his little four-year-old tongue tripping on the syllables. 

“Yes. Because we are a Dyad. We are soulmates. Mama was always meant to love your papa.” I pause. This part of the story still hurts, even with the space of time that has passed since that fateful night. “But because of the way those monsters twisted our paths, and because of those choices both your Papa and I made, instead of walking it side by side, your Papa now walks it within me. As part of me. Your papa is here.” I touch my heart. “And here.” I touch my temple. “And especially here.” I gently dig my fingertips into my son’s small belly. “Because the Force gave me—gave your papa and me—a gift. Some small part of what was set out from the beginning to be that couldn’t happen because of the paths we walked.”

“ME!” He throws his hands up and beams. 

“That’s right.” I hug him close, and his little arms weave around my middle. We just stay in our embrace for a moment, my fingers rubbing little Ben’s back and carding through his hair. 

They say time heals all wounds. And it does. But wounds leave scars, and scars will always remind us of the pain that caused them. Sometimes they even ache as if they were freshly made yesterday. At that moment, the pain of Ben’s loss hits me, and tears fill my eyes and fall onto Benny’s head. I bite my lip to not sob and try to steady my breath, but my body still shakes with an involuntary hitch. My little one looks up at me.

“Mama, why are you crying?” The concern in his wide eyes makes my heart swell. 

“Because...” I falter, trying to compose myself. “Because your papa would have loved you so much. Would have been such a good papa to you.” I kiss his forehead, whispering against my tears. “And I know he’s proud of you, baby.”

“I know, Mama.” He smiles that smile again—his father’s smile—as he jumps down from my lap to saunter towards the door. “He told me.”

I can feel my heart all but stop. And that part of me that is Ben, his soul within me, pulses, makes my stuttered heart race and my cheeks flush. “He… he told you?”

“Yes.” He nods as he reaches the door, shrugging his little shoulders. “Sometimes Papa talks to me. In my dreams. Like he does to you.”

Little Ben races out of the room to his own. I can hear him pull out his toys, carrying on as if he has just told me that the sky is blue or the grass is green. Not that his long-gone father has learned to communicate with him from the beyond. It’s such a simple, natural truth to his little mind. If Papa speaks to Mama in her dreams, it seems normal to him that Papa would also speak to him. 

  
  


That night, I fall into the dreamscape where Ben can meet me in an almost corporal form. It’s a strange sensation when we touch, like grasping at smoke or light. Yet there is something tangible there in his presence: a whisper of his kisses, of his hands on my body, of his breath at my neck, and his fingers in my hair as he moves within me. And afterward, we lay in a hazy afterglow, his presence somehow always stronger once we’ve come together. We grasp onto each other to savor those few moments where the dream feels just this side of  _ real _ .

“You’ve found a way to communicate with our son?” I finally say, feeling his fingers trace small circles at my back.

Ben nods, a smile curling the corner of his mouth. “Barely. Just for a few seconds. Moments.” He tilts my chin up to look into his eyes. “But I can talk to him, Rey. I can talk to our son.”

“But how, Ben? We share a soul. We have an unbreakable bond through the Force. Our connection is miraculous, but there's a method behind it.” I can feel the sting of tears in my eyes. “Our boy is not Force sensitive.”

He cups my cheek, and it is with a sad longing that I feel his touch already weakening. “But the Force is what flows between all living things. Just because he can’t sense it and manipulate it like us doesn’t mean he isn’t a part of it. He is, just as much as you or I. I know you can sense him. You sensed him in your womb. You can feel his emotions.”

“Even non-force sensitive parents claim to have a bond like that with their children,” I interject, nuzzling into the fading sensation of his palm on my face. “That’s more motherly instinct than the Force at work.”

Ben shakes his head. “I think it’s both. And he  _ is _ my son, so with the Force, with my ‘fatherly instinct’, I seem to be able to make a weak sort of a connection.” I prop myself up on my elbows, the feel of his skin on mine nothing like the one time he was truly able to hold me, when I awoke from the darkness of death to a life renewed in his arms. But it’s there. It’s something I cling to. Ben’s eyes glisten, mirroring my own as he smiles, voice softening. “And I think you’ve strengthened that, sweetheart. By letting him know me though you. It’s formed a bridge, one I can cross— even if it’s just long enough to see how he’s grown with my own eyes, to tell him I wish for nothing more than to be there with him. Let him know I love him.”

I let out a sob at that, and Ben reaches out to ghost a kiss on my trembling lips. “This is so unfair, Ben.” I manage to say between my tears. “You’re not even a Force ghost, like your mother, like Luke. You’re just this constant presence within me. All I get is this taste of our life in these lucid dreams. It’s cruel.”

“It is. But it’s more than many get. I get to live in you, as one. And when you’ve passed on into the Force, I’m all but certain we’ll go on together.” He wipes away my tears as more fall in their wake. “I’m tied to your soul, one with it. And you have so much more to give, Rey. I’m happy to take this journey with you.” I kiss his shadow as best I can before tucking my head to where his heart would be beating, if he were flesh and blood. His own voice trembles as he continues, “But I do regret not walking it by your side. To not be able to be your family, to give you the family you’ve always craved.”

“You gave me family, Ben,” I assure him. “You loved me in life. And you gave me our boy.”

“Technically the Force did that. I didn’t get the full joy of creating him.” He gives a sad laugh. “But I am thankful for that blessing.”

“I love you, Ben.” I breathe out against his chest. 

“I love you, Sweetheart. Sleep now.” Fingers stroke my hair, and I feel my eyes grow heavy. “Fully sleep. I’m sure we’ll find each other again here soon.”

Reluctantly, the dreamscape fades as I drift off in my lover’s arms. He dissipates. Our little haven of reverie melts. But I can still feel him hold me all through the night.

  
  


I wake with another “memory” in my mind. We are in a place that seems like the Lake Country here on Naboo, though it’s hazy in the summer sun. We’re on a picnic. I watch Ben play with our son, teaching him to swing a stick like a lightsaber, how to parry and thrust. They laugh when little Benny is able to trip up his father, and Ben swoops him up into his arms and spins him until they are both dizzy and fall to the ground. I can feel joy swell within me, watching him carefree and without the mask of Kylo he wore for so long. Watching him be the amazing father I knew he was destined to be.

And that’s when I look down into my arms and know that this little fantasy is truly just a wish of our combined souls. For in my arms, a newborn girl lays slumbering. Pale skin and already thick, dark curls. But lips and a nose like a miniature version of my own. And somehow I know beneath those sleepy lashes lie hazel eyes. 

Our daughter. 

I don’t know if this is a glimpse of a life on another path, or just a hopeful fantasy. But I do know that there is no way for this sweet baby in my arms to come into being. There is no means for which Ben and I could come together and create another life. Our son was a miracle, conceived as life passed between one soulmate to another and molded into something new with the Force’s hand. But now, there is nothing that can spill over to create this girl. She’s just a hope, a dream, a painful remainder of the life we should have shared.

I turn and bury my face in my pillow, the image of that little girl blazened into my mind. My heart actually aches with each beat for the loss of her, for the fact that I spend the nights in Ben’s arms and awaken in the morning cold and alone. I capture my sobs in my pillow, hoping my son is still asleep and won’t hear me cry.

_ I’m sorry, love _ , I hear Ben say in our circular bond, a small sensation of comfort washing over me.  _ She was too beautiful to not show you. But I don’t see how she can come to be.  _

_ Maybe if we just keep trying to make her?  _ I try to joke, but I can hear my voice tremble, even in my own head. 

_ Which I will gladly do. As often as I can visit you. But as beautiful as those moments are, as real as they seem, they are just dreams. _ I can feel a surge of disappointment in my veins and I really can’t tell if it’s mine or Ben’s, so hard is it to separate from my own sorrow.  _ I can’t give you another child. _

“I know, Ben,” I sigh aloud, and then say back through our connection, as to not wake our boy _ , She can’t come to be.  _

Softly, Ben says,  _ Not this time, at least.  _

My breath catches at his words. _ This time? _

_ We’re a Dyad, Rey. And not just two that are one, but a balance. Actual soulmates.  _ His tone is so gentle, warm. It’s almost like I can feel his touch through the vibrations of his rich voice in my head.  _ I’ve loved you in lives before this. I’ll love you in lives after. She’ll just have to wait for our next life to be born.  _

There is something so comforting about that and, somehow, I know in my bones that what he speaks is true.  _ We’ve suffered enough this lifetime, Ben. Perhaps our next life will be kinder to us.  _

_ It will. It has to be,  _ he says with determination, like he is speaking our joyful reincarnation into existence.  _ Plus, I'm kriffing doing this right the next time. I’m proposing at first sight. I don’t care if we are six or 60.  _

I laugh out loud, hearing it echo in my room _. How about just love me?  _

_ Always.  _ He says, and a smile spreads across my face.  _ In this life, the next, and everything in between _ .

“Mama?” I hear a sleepy voice call from the doorway. 

“Morning, baby.” I lift the covers and open my arms as little Ben jumps in to snuggle beside me.

“Still sleepy,” he mumbles, his lips pouting out adorably as his eyes flutter closed, wrapped in the warmth of my covers and arms. It isn’t long before his breath slows to the deep draws of slumber. I smile, tucking him closer to me. 

“Be with me.” I breath out before the lingering arms of sleep swallow me and welcome me in their embrace, slipping again into that world between sleeping and awake. 

And then, whispered against my hair as strong arms seem to slide around me and our son:

“I am with you. Always.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are lifeblood!
> 
> Also, it’s my personal head canon that their “next life” is my WIP, [One, I Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524926/chapters/51309901). If you want their HEA, go give that story a read. It’s not yet completed, but I’m working on it. 
> 
> Come find me on the [Twitters](https://twitter.com/auroranoir7).


End file.
